|
Home
Syllabus
Theoretical
Frameworks
Homework
& Project
Slides
and Outlines |
| Theoretical
Frameworks for Understanding the Origin and Development of Humankind
and Human Society in China |
- Culture is a system of interrelated
and networked parts that are mutually complementary--there is congruence
between supernatural beliefs, art, political control, stratification,
family and marriage, economy, etc.
- Humans evolved biologically and culturally over the
past million+ years in China--this interpretation of evidence is in
contrast to the "Eve" theory of the descent of modern humans
from an anatomically modern "founding-mother out-of-Africa in the
last 30,000-50,000 years
- Humans developed technologies for plant and animal
manipulation (domestication) independently in China--the interpretation
of modern evidence refutes the mid-20th C views that the technology
for agriculture resulted from migrations from the west of farmers or
from the importation of the agricultural technology from the west into
China
- Domestication in some areas of China permitted the
development of settled communities; in China, patrilineal, patrilocal
clans, inheritance patterns and ancestor worship influenced the direction
of subsequent social differentiation--most modern theory proposes that
a stable agricultural base is required before social differentiation
can develop to the point of state society
- Art, myth and ritual were the path to political authority
in ancient China (e.g., access to the gods and thereby to the means
of production underlies Chinese cultural evolution; access was through
certain segments of certain clans; early art can be seen as coincident
with shamanistic paraphernalia; early writing recorded divination and
prognostications by the political authority--this is in contrast to
the still prominent cultural materialist interpretation that technology,
especially hydraulic engineering and control of water, was the force
accounting for the development of political authority in China, and
of the view that writing developed to record production
- Cultural change may be rapid or slow; however, rapid
changes may lead to dissonances among the several parts of culture--our
case in point will be the radical changes in culture imposed after 1949
by the communistic system (political, societal, economic, and others).
Other periods of marked change include the rise of the scholar bureaucrat,
introduction/absorption of buddhism, imposition of rule by the Man (minority)
in the 16th C., and western contacts in beginning in the late 18th C.
Among the factors fueling change are population migration, importation
of technology, "diffusion" of ideas, independent invention,
and innovations based on existing culture.
|
|